Effects of Ebola virus scar on international students mobility. (1)

Students cordoned off on the campus of Southwestern College during a mid-October Ebola scare (Reuters/Mike Blake)

An abundance of caution

Many institutions are now considering what measures they will take in response to Ebola. Some are encouraging students or staff who have travelled from West Africa to monitor their health closely. Others are introducing travel bans for faculty and staff to prevent travel to affected countries.
Spurred by three confirmed Ebola cases in the Dallas area, and, on 24 October, another confirmed case in New York City, some US institutions have been quick to act in response to even the possibility of contact with the disease.

• In mid-October, a public health doctoral student at Yale University, recently returned from Liberia, was isolated in hospital with fever symptoms. The student later tested negative for the disease.
• Kent State University asked three staff members who had possibly been exposed to stay off campus and monitor their health for 21 days, widely considered to be the maximum incubation period for the virus.
• Students at California’s Southwestern College were evacuated and quarantined for several hours after rumours spread that a student had been in contact with someone with Ebola-like symptoms. (The claim was soon disproved and the quarantine lifted.)
• Syracuse University and the University of Georgia have both recently cancelled speaking appearances by journalists who had returned from Liberia.
• Oregon’s Jesuit High School cancelled a school visit by a group of African student leaders.
• Dallas-area Navarro College rejected applications from Nigerian students, saying that the community college was “not accepting international students from countries with confirmed Ebola cases,” though they have since cited other reasons for the rejection.       Source: ICEF Monitor